Monday, January 9, 2012

01/09/2012
I got this text from Butch
Junia last Jan. 5 on the rate reset application of the Manila Electric
Co. (Meralco) before the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC): “The first
hearing on… ERC case 2011-088 is set on Jan. 16 at 2pm. This is the
first hearing on merits after ERC granted provisional authority in Oct.
2011, to take effect July 1, 2012. The rate granted is P1.58/kWh but
consumers led by Naro Lualhati say it’s only P0.90/kWh. ERC up to now
has not addressed consumer opposition. Let us build
awareness/interest/involvement of the public. Also work up media
coverage. Can we also solicit help/appearance of Alan and Bono? Thank
you.”

Not even a week of the New Year has passed and our consumer
crusaders are back on the ball again, raring to engage the “enemies of
the people” in the continuing war to bring public interest and consumer
welfare back to the top of the nation’s priorities. It will be a
daunting task for sure, as we need to overcome the oligarchy and
mainstream media’s mass mind manipulation with “red herring” issues such
as that “Little Girl” and Corona.

Still, we have to doggedly go
at it, lest Meralco has another year of bonanzas courtesy of the
“provisional authority” granted to it by the ERC. We must remember that
this provisional authority is granted even before issues meant to
protect consumers are threshed out, which means that these are almost
never resolved. And in the few times that they are, such as in the
P30-billion Meralco refund case won by consumers in 2003, almost a
decade passes and still the money owed by Meralco doesn’t get to be
entirely paid. Worse, there is even an allegation that the power giant
actually gets money for these payments from its hapless customers — an
issue that remains unresolved to this day.

To refresh our
memories, Mang Naro Lualhati had already questioned in 2010 the
ERC-approved Performance Based Regulation (PBR) rate-setting scheme due
to the fact that “overstated annual capital requirements” actually
become the basis for massively distorted rate translations, which, in
turn, discriminate against residential consumers who have to pay as high
as P4/kWh (in distribution rates) while overwhelmingly favoring
industrial/commercial users who only pay as low as P0.30/kWh — this, as
the ERC-approved rate of over 15 percent is far beyond the legal
reasonable 12-percent limit set by the Electric Power Industry Reform
Act (Epira), among other issues.

Jojo Borja, part owner of power
company, Iligan Light, and now recognized as an “oppositor” by the ERC,
has also charged Meralco with overpricing many components of its service
— from its transformers and electric poles priced five times higher to
its substation installations with an even higher overprice — facts that
the foreign consultants of the ERC and Meralco had even admitted to.

And,
as we transition from the old to the New Year, let us examine the many
economic year-enders that have attempted to trace our economic problems.
I included Ben Diokno’s “2012 will be better but…,” “Economic lessons
from 2011” by Sonny Africa, “Riding out the turbulence” (Malaya
editorial), Raul Fabella’s “Elite capture,” and many others. Yet none
has ever mentioned “the highest power cost in Asia” as a major root of
our country’s economic problems.

I don’t know if they are actually
being deliberate in missing this, but industry leaders, from the
Philippine Chamber of Commerce to the Confederation of Philippine
Exporters and the Employers Confederation of the Philippines, to name a
few indicative groups, have already identified the exorbitant power
rates in the country as the major hindrance to encouraging investments
and, hence, industry and employment.

Tragically, BS Aquino III has
not made a single quip on this problem in the past 20 months,
preferring to make a mountain out of an alleged P14-million condo unit
of Corona instead of the P14-billion annual larceny in the power
distribution sector and hundreds of billions in the other power units,
compelling the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. to
borrow and burden taxpayers with P85 billion more in loans for 2012,
after getting P75 billion in 2011.

The current year will usher in
more “magic” for the power sector as four Napocor (National Power Corp.)
power barges (101 to 104) are set to be privatized while a power
shortage is created in Mindanao (see Jan. 5 headline “Rotating outages
to hit south-central Mindanao”). At the blink of an eye, these four
power barges sold off to oligarchs are sure to suddenly come on line at
the opportune time. But wait. There is another momentous event coming
in the power sector that we should brace for.

Little noticed was
the recent creation of a new agency, the “institutionalization of an
independent market operator (IMO) that shall oversee the Wholesale
Electricity Spot Market (Wesm)… (assuming) vast powers in the approval
of market rule changes and in the appointment of board memberships.”
What we are about to see is a concentration of power over policies and
prices in a body that the public has no control over, which is likely
beyond what the Epira had ever envisioned.

The members to the
five-man IMO are required not to have any relations with any member of
the Wesm, or the private power companies, at least two years prior; but
that’s a joke since even today many Cabinet officials have
conflicts-of-interest with their former (and prospective) corporate
employers.

What we need is a body with members who are
unquestionably on the side of the consumers and taxpayers — something
that we will never see under the present dispensation.

01/09/2012
At long last, it seems that
the Freedom of Information (FoI) bill showed signs of life after a long
period of uncertainty under Noynoy who had pledged in the 2010 campaigns
that this would be a priority of his administration. But after his
election, he started to change his tune, citing the danger to the nation
of too much information being released from government.

A draft
bill with the apparent approval of Noynoy is being readied for
transmittal to Congress. According to Malacaang, the rehashed proposal
has been the product of long consultations with the media and others who
are concerned about the availability of state information.

The Palace did not say, however, whether or not Noynoy would endorse the bill as his administrations priority.

The
bill is well debated since it has the potential of assuring
transparency in government by requiring it to release nearly all forms
of information that the public will require and the trade off, according
to Malacaang might be the compromising of national security objectives.
Nonetheless, the Philippines with the lack of commitment from
government is one of the shrinking group of countries that has remained
resistant to an FoI..... MORE

The New York City headquarters of a group cooperating with the Occupy
Wall Street movement was swarmed by the NYPD on Tuesday in a raid that
left half a dozen people involved with the Globalrevolution.tv website
in police custody.

Cops entered the Bushwick studio used by Global Revolution on Tuesday
after posting a notice on the door of the space occupied by the group
the night before. According to authorities, the space at 13 Thames St in
the Brooklyn, NY neighborhood hosted conditions “imminently perilous to
life” and had to be vacated by all occupants, although failed to
provide any details on what factors had led to such a case. When cops
returned the next day and found a handful of people on the premises,
they were arrested..... MORE

The US military has been accused of abuse and torture at its
notorious detention center in Afghanistan. Investigators say most
detainees at Bagram prison are being held without charge or firm
evidence of guilt.

­Inmates of the US-run prison outside Bagram Air Base north of Kabul
complained of freezing cold, humiliating strip searches and being
deprived of light, according to Gul Rahman Qazi, who led an
investigation ordered by President Hamid Karzai..... MORE

Pensions and health care plans for US troops will be drastically
reduced under a new budget presented by US President Barack Obama on
Thursday. Not all aspects of the DoD will be annihilated, however.

The DoD will ditch medical benefits for troops but continue to spend on its expensive arsenal of doom.

President
Obama joined Defense Secretary Leon Panetta from the Pentagon early
Thursday in a rare public address from the two to talk changes made to
the ledger in regards to the operation of the US military. As the US
begins to scale back on foreign operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, the
Obama administration is finding less of a need for the servicemen and
women that have been on the battlefronts for the last decade. In order
to cut costs, the new budget will thus eliminate positions from the
armed forces and initiate changes to the pension and health care plans
for military vets..... MORE

American Amir Mirzai Hekmati, who also holds Iranian citizenship, has
been sentenced to death by a judge in Iran for spying for the CIA,
local media reported on Monday.

­The 28-year-old received the death penalty for “cooperating with a hostile nation, membership of the CIA and trying to implicate Iran in terrorism," the verdict said, according to the country’s semi-official Fars news agency.

Last month, Fars reported that the prosecution had applied for capital punishment because the suspect "admitted
that he received training in the United States and planned to imply
that Iran was involved in terrorist activities in foreign countries" after returning to the US..... MORESource: RT.com

01/09/2012
The youngest member of the
Supreme Court(SC), Associate Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno, has proved to
be a dependable advocate (partisan would be too strong a word) of the
Aquino administration. This is not to suggest that she is and will
continue to be beholden to P-Noy being his first appointee to the high
tribunal.

Or that she is the Palace’s embedded member and
designated hitter in the high tribunal. It is just that she has become,
in the eyes of many observers, the main gatekeeper of the Aquino
“agenda” however that may be translated now and presumably when she
retires in 2030.

So congruent has Sereno’s ideas been with
Malacanañg’s that she could very well pass off for Justice Secretary
Leila de Lima and vice-versa in discussing various issues brought before
the Court specially those involving the past administration and now
Chief Justice Renato Corona..... MORE

President
Aquino bared before national television yesterday that authorities
supposedly discovered a terrorist plot to disrupt the annual Black
Nazarene religious procession in Manila that draws millions of
Filipinos, warning at the same time that plotters had not been arrested.

At
a hastily called press conference at the Palace, Aquino, along with
Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa and Interior and Local Government
Secretary Jesse Robredo, went on national TV to warn devotees attending
the procession to be “extra careful and vigilant” even as he hinted that
the government has deployed additional troops from the Philippine
National Police (PNP), the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and
other security units to the event.

Aquino said police had been
tracking the group, which he did not identify, that was allegedly
planning to sow terror during the feast of the Black Nazarene today..... MORE

01/09/2012
A decision by the United
States Supreme Court last month, staying the deportation of a Filipino
immigrant convicted of voluntary manslaughter, could slow down the
deportation of nearly 393,000 people in the fiscal year that ended
September 30, half of whom were considered criminals.

Joel Judulang, 45, of Los Angeles, California, was ordered released from detention by a unanimous
decision last Dec. 12 of the Supreme Court penned by Justice Elena
Kagan, describing the new policy of the government’s Board of
Immigration Appeals “as arbitrary and capricious on its own merits, even
apart from retroactivity concerns.”

Judulang was born in the Philippines and was brought to the United States in 1974 at the age of eight..... MORE

01/09/2012
Rescuers retrieved three more
bodies from a landslide that buried part of an illegal gold-mining site
in the Compostela Valley, raising the death toll to 31, officials said
yesterday.

The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management
Council said the toll could rise with up to 39 while others still
unaccounted for. Heavy rains sparked a landslide on Thursday that buried
part of the site in the town of Pantukan, Compostela Valley.

There
had been confusion over the exact number of missing because authorities
said gold prospectors do not necessarily register themselves with local
authorities and no proper census was kept..... MORE

01/09/2012
Suspected Abu Sayyaf
terrorists exploded another bridge in Sulu province on Saturday night,
barely a day after the United States issued a travel advisory against
the Philippines, rendering the structure impassable to all vehicles.

Quoting
reports from the field, Philippine National Police (PNP) spokesman
Chief Supt. Agrimero Cruz Jr. said that an improvised explosive device
(IED) was exploded at the Km 15 Bridge in Barangay Pangdanon, Patikul
town around 10:40 p.m.

“As a result, the bridge was totally
damaged and presently not passable to all types of vehicles,” Cruz said.
“Initial investigation disclosed that the IED was planted by ASG (Abu
Sayyaf) members operating in Patikul, Sulu.”.... MORE

The
Palace is “staunchly behind” the campaign of the Department of Tourism
(DoT) with the country’s new slogan, “It’s more fun in the Philippines,”
to attract more tourism by 2012, while the growing number of reactions
to the new slogan — online or in print media — is proof that the
campaign to attract more visitors to the Philippines is working.

Deputy
presidential spokesman Abigail Valte said the entire government is on
board and the President has not said anything to effect any review of
the DoT slogan.

“We are staunchly behind the campaign of DoT and,
more importantly, we are relying on the support of the public. As
Secretary Jimenez said, “It will work if it we make it work. We are the
primary reason why it’s more fun in the Philippines,’” she said..... MORE